It was, depending upon your perspective, either a triumph for quiet-yet-fim British diplomacy or a PR coup for the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But as 15 British sailors and marines return to the UK, ending one of the more convoluted international standoffs of recent years, what do many bloggers want to talk about? The suits, of course.

The outfits made their debut yesterday afternoon, when the captives were paraded before Mr Ahmadinejad in order to thank him for allowing them to return home.

While leading seaman Faye Turney made do with what looked like a hooped dress and cardigan combo, her 14 male comrades sported ill-fitting three-button suits in various shades of grey that looked suspiciously similar in cut to the president's own, lighter-coloured version.

A Canadian blogger, Michelle, was one of many to notice this similarity, saying:

How strangely funny that before they were released they were all dressed to look like president nutbag Ahmadinejad.

One of her readers responded:

Well, he DID say this was a gift to the British people. Maybe he decided to give away his entire collection of suits, too ... what a standup guy!

The British news digest site Anorak.co.uk had a different take on the pictures of the captives lined up and waving at the cameras:

Put a caption of a different sort beneath the picture and you have a shot of the UK's yachting team return[ing] home after a triumphant performance in the inaugural Allied-Axis Of Evil Games.

Departing from sartorial matters, the Iranian-born, Canada-based blogger Hoderdeduced 10 "lessons" from the affair, including that Iran had "won the PR game" and its president was "one heck of a street-smart politician".

I hope that the world would also please stop evil-izing Iran. So we have a naughty government ... you do not have to tell us over and over, we already know it :)

Finally, a comment from a newspaper, rather than a blog, written before the announcement of the captives' release but worth mentioning for its sheer bile and scorn.

In allowing themselves to be captured without a shot being fired, and then being shown confessing to having crossed into Iranian waters, the UK crew disgraced themselves, said the New York Post columnist Ralph Peters, a soldier-turned journalist.

Jingoism aside, I can't imagine any squad of US marines behaving in such a shabby, cowardly fashion. Our marines would have fought to begin with. Taken captive by force, they would've resisted collaboration. To the last man and woman ...

The Iranians judged their victims well: the British boat crews didn't make even a token effort at defending themselves. Now their boo-hoo-we-quit government isn't defending them, either. Was Margaret Thatcher the last real man in Britain?

In case any readers missed his point, Mr Peters ends with a colloquial flourish by referring to the captives as "those wankers".